Today, I asked April from Hansen Love to guest! She asked me to guest post a few weeks ago. You can find that article here. April has been my best fresty since 6th grade. I love her! But since we both got married and she moved away, we don't see each other much. I miss her. :) we stay in touch though. She's great and is my blogging inspiration. Ladies and Gentlemen... I give you... April: Star of Hansen Love

Hello all!!! I am April Hansen, I am the founder, writer, and star of Hansen Love.
Okay. I don't know about star, but it sounded cool right?? It is a
lifestyle blog about my husband, Jake, and I. And our little adventures
as newlyweds. Yeah yeah, I know. Another newlywed blog. But you have to
admit you always get stuck reading them! ;)

Kayla asked me to guest post on her blog today and I am so excited. At
first I couldn't think what in the world I could have to offer you that
would be of worth. And then it finally hit me this weekend.

For
Christmas, I gave Jake tickets to see George Straits concert. It is his
last tour, and my dear sweet husband has been the biggest fan of George
his whole life. Just a little background story, Jake is a farmer
through and through. Going back through the line there are farmers as
far as you can see.

In
fact his Grandpa Hansen (Gramps for short) owned a John Deere
Dealership way back when. So yeah. Lots of farming. Jake grew up
listening to George while herding cows with Gramps and his cousin Logan.
He listened to George when he was out hunting with his Dad. He sang
George to me when I was sick and we were dating. George is his hero.
When he thinks of George, he thinks of all the good things that came
when listening to him.

So... I took Jake to see his hero. His reaction was unbelievable ...

He was so happy. And I was happy I got his reaction. :) haha

So If you hadn't caught on, I wanted to talk about my hero. And how she has changed my life.

This ladies and gentlemen, Is my Momma :)

Cliche' I know. But I wanted to share, along with Kayla about how my mom is my hero.

This lady is the strongest woman I know.

This is my family. And we sure have raised a lot of hell. My mom, and dad, put up with all of us kids.

My mom was diagnosed with Hepatitis C when I was young. really young.
She had got it way back before she met my dad in a doctors office by
accidentally pricking her finger. This changed our life and hers
forever.

Everything
started catching up with her when I was in 6th or 7th grade. It started
effecting her and she decided to go to the doctor and get treated for
this.

Tons of different kinds of medicines, many trips to Salt Lake, and a lot
of prayers later she was down to one last medicine that was going to
help her.

I remember the night before she went to be tested to see if this last
medicine worked. There I was in my bed. A little 12 year old, praying as
hard as I could that this medicine would work. That I could have my mom
there when I went to my first dance. That she would go prom dress
shopping with me. That she would be there to kiss my cheek on my wedding
day.

The
next day, we found out that this medicine was working. Great news
right!?!?! yes. It was much like going through cancer treatments. She
had chemo, radiation, and also gave herself a shot every day.

It was hard to see her lose weight and hair but still be able to go to
work everyday and come home and cook for us. I learned a lot from my mom
in the year that she was on that medicine. She is so very strong, and
an amazing example to me.

After a while of being on the medicine she decided that she would stay
off of it for a while so she could live a normal happy life. Now that
she is thinking of going back on it, it breaks my heart to know what it
can put her through.

But I know that she can do anything and that I will learn even more from her.

My mom is a super mom. My hero.

** I don't want to make this depressing or leave you feeling sad. So heres a little video to make you smile.

Oh Paul Harvey. How I loved listening to you when I was young... Lets be nostalgic.

I believe we got to 5 Foods so lets move on to...

6. Places

1. Norway. My moms side of the family are Norwegian Immigrants, My grandpa served a mission in Norway, and my uncle has visited Norway.. My heart truely has ties to this beautiful place. I hope that one day I can go there!!!

2. Hawaii. As most of you know, my parents get to go here in a little over a month!! I hope that one day, I can go there with them! And my brother and Jill and my hubby!

3. This pool. Its located in Midway, UT. At the Homestead Resort, it is a crater that is filled with water, and its a swimming pool!! coolest thing ever!!!

4. Tahiti. Specifically this resort. When Keith and I got engaged we REALLY wanted to go here for our honeymoon. But lets be honest, what kind of newlyweds have that kind of cash?!? So it goes on my dream places to visit.

5. You're all going to think I'm strange for this one... but number 5 is the lovely Bermuda Triangle, full of fear and mystery of the unknown! (Its awesome!)

6. The castles of Ireland! Self explanatory!

7 Wants

Baby Woolsey crawling around our new house

Someone to pack my current house up

Be fit, and lose the weight I've always wanted to lose

Have 100,000,000 Dollars

Have a full time job doing something I love.

THIS SEMESTER TO BE OVER (I hate fit for life)

To live a long life, and be remembered for changing the world for better.

8 Fears

If any of you know me, you can guess most of these...

CAR ACCIDENTS

Being alone

Never becoming a mother

Spiders

Snakes

LIZARDS!!!

I have a fear of what others think of me

I also have a fear that I will not make a difference

9 Loves

Keith

Water Aerobics

My Family (both of them)

Smiling

Singing

Music

Movies

Reading

All of you for reading my blog!

and FINALLY

10 Secrets

I hate to shower when no one is home.

Every time I get in my car, my life flashes before my eyes.

Sometimes I cry simply because I feel inadequate

I'll never tell, but what people I barely know say about me hurts the worst.

I love when Keith surprise hugs me

I love getting flowers

I need approval from the people I love

I still have no idea what I want to do with my life

I am becoming addicted to blogging

I'm terrified that I will not be able to be a good wife or mother. These two things are the most important things in the world to be.

That was fun! You should all do this. I learned a lot about myself!

And as Paul Harvey would say... and that is .... The Rest of the Story

I released the info on facebook today that Mr. and Mrs. Woolsey are going to be homeowners! We found the cutest most spectacular house! And we are getting financing to buy it! We love it. It is so perfect for us!!! We were a little stressed because the payment will be a little more than we are paying for rent right now, so I set out on a journey to find another job.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE my job at the college, but I needed something that could give me just a little more cash per month!

So I applied, and applied, and applied. And I didn't get called time, after time, after time. So finally, I applied at Key Research, and today, I turned in my application and got interviewed. GUESS WHAT!!!!! I GOT THE JOB!!!

Okay, so its not all that hard to get a job there. But still, I really needed this and Keith and I were leaving the final decision up to fate. We decided that if I got this job, we would DEFINITELY buy the house! So I got it and WE GET TO BUY THE HOUSE!!!

I hate thursdays, for a variety of reasons, this semester it is because on Thursdays I have the WORST class. FIT FOR LIFE... and its the activity day... I am not an athlete, and that is just fine with me! But, there are some mean girls in my PE class that think that it is the end of the world if we don't win a silly game of Fit for Life wallyball. Anyway, I hate it, so to make Thursdays more bearable. I have decided to start a tradition on the blog.

Every Thursday I will cook something, or make something I see on Pinterest and then blog about it!

Today, I will blog about dinner last night :)

I LOVE Roasted Potatoes.

My momma used to make them when she was too tired to make anything extravagant. So, I decided to make them for Keithy.

I thought I would try my own recipe cause I'm trying to become better in the kitchen ;)

1. Preheat Oven to 400 degrees
2. Clean and Cube potatoes (don't peel them, we love the skins on the red potatoes)
3. Mix the olive oil, garlic, basil, dill weed, thyme, oregano, parsley, and salt in a large bowl.
4. Stir in the potatoes a handful at a time until all the potatoes are coated.
5. GREASE THE PAN!! (We didn't, and we regretted it)
6. Spread the potatoes out onto a baking sheet or a roasting pan in a single layer.
7. Put 'em in for 40 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes so all sides are brown and delicious!
8. EAT THEM!!! They're soo good!

We should have taken a picture, but they were just too delicious, they were gone before we had a moment to take a picture!

So I haven't made a whole lot of deep, profound posts. But this morning I am feeling both deep and profound so hold on, this is going to be a good one.

I am truly such a blessed person. There are a lot of things that have happened in my life (both good and bad) that have made me realize that. My logic in life is that you can never know true happiness unless you have felt true sorrow. It's true sometimes life throws so much at you that you just don't know how to take another step. And then you take it, and everything else falls into place. So yeah. Life is hard, it's supposed to be hard, if it wasn't hard, if everyday there wasn't some struggle we face, why would we be here?

As most of you know, a few years ago, in February of 2009 my mom, my best friend and my hero, was diagnosed with breast cancer. When I found this out, I couldn't even stand up, my mom, the strongest person in the world, the woman who had protected me and taken care of me for my whole life, was now in immediate danger. At this moment. I was terrified that I might lose my best friend. Everything else I was stressed or worried about, school, mean girls, rumors, it all flew out the window and seemed like such a silly, trivial minor detail. My best friend was very sick, and there was nothing medically I could do for her. I felt helpless and scared. But then I thought, if you feel this way, imagine how helpless and scared mom feels. For her I knew I had to be strong, to be brave, and to help her with everything I could for as long as she needed me. It was a long 6 months of chemo, and an even longer 6 months of radiation, but at last it was over and my mother was in remission, this February will be her 4th year cancer free. She is almost considered "cured". I know that I will never again take her for granted. She is the most amazing person on this planet. She is my best friend, and the person I turn to for everything. She is my hero. She, is my mom.

I am so blessed to have such an amazing role model in my life, if I am half the mom to my kids as she is to me, I'll know in doing just fine.

Another experience that has made me realize how blessed I am is my wonderful husband. Keith is so amazing. Yesterday we watched the very last episode of Everybody Loves Raymond on Netflix, I started thinking about how we started watching Raymond when Keith broke his arm and we had to sleep on the living room floor on two separate air mattresses because he kept rolling towards me to cuddle and I'd hurt his arm.

If you don't know what happens in the last episode of Raymond, he has to get his adenoids out, and he had a hard time coming out of anesthesia. For just a moment, Deb thought she had lost him.

Seeing this brought me back to that moment that we got in that stupid accident. I was going too fast, and I should have slowed down. My first thought was "did Keith get off the four wheeler?" I knew that if he hasn't he would certainly have been badly injured. Then I heard him saying my name. He picked me up, and then he saw his wrist, and I saw his wrist. It was broken, badly. And we were at the top of the mountain. Thankfully Keith's uncle and dad and Maria and Tammy were there, I got on with Tammy and Keith got on with Dennis and we made our way down the mountain. When we got to the hospital Keith was in so much pain. Seeing him like that was the most awful experience in the world. All I could do was hold him. Then they sent us to Payson because the break was too bad for them to fix. Keith now was aware he would have to go under anesthesia, he was so scared. He had never had surgery before and he was afraid. We got there and they let me hold his hand until he fell asleep. Then we say in the waiting room for what seemed like an eternity. I laid my head on my mom and just cried. Emotion was overflowing. I was in pain from the accident, I was so sorry that I wrecked the four wheeler, and I was SO worried about Keith. After an eternity, the nurse came out and asked if I would come back, I was scared because she didn't say that he was awake. Just that I should go back to the recovery room. When I got back to the room I saw Keith laying there still asleep. The nurse told me that he was still asleep and he was having a hard time waking up. He woke up for a moment before the nurse came to get me, and asked for his wife (we had only been married like 3 weeks so I was excited about the wife thing). He i talked to him. He started to wake up, seeing him, seeing that he was okay. That made everything else okay too. I am blessed. Soooo very blessed.

And lastly, (though it should have been firstly) I am blessed because I was a blessing, blessed because I was chosen, picked for this wonderful, fabulous life that I have. I was adopted by the most wonderful family. And I love them all so much!

and I have a great father who I love so much, he certainlykeeps me on my toes.

I went to an ItWorks Wrap Party on Friday night and it was amazing! I got wrapped (best $25 I've ever spent!) I've lost 18 inches in the last 72 hours.

I have pictures... but I feel a little awkward posting them, so just imagine... me minus 18 inches!

I will definitely be doing another wrap soon, I'm loving this weight loss journey! Soon I'll be confident enough to post before and after pictures!!! :)

Life is crazy busy, working, school... etc.

I'm taking a quilting class this semester and I am SO excited about it! I picked out fabric on Saturday (we were supposed to go to Provo, but it snowed like a foot, so for safety reason's we cancelled our trip.) But I found some cute material (well as cute as you can get at the Walmart with the LEAST amount of EVERYTHING!)

My fabric

What do you think?

I think it has serious potential, don't worry, I will keep you updated.

Any who... Tonight I'm going to an ItWorks Wrap Party, I don't know a whole lot about it but people tell me that its this easy...

They lather me with goo, wrap me up in Saran Wrap, then I sit for a while, they unwrap me, and I weigh less. good idea? GREAT IDEA!!! I'll post before and after pictures, since I know you're all DYING to see that

Thanks to my awesome LL April, who is a great blogger over at Hansen Love and keeps on top of the bloggesphere, I was made aware of this super awesome Valentines Swap for Bloggers. I entered, and you should too!!! :) It will be fun, you can get an excellent Valentine from someone AWESOME! :)

Can you believe it? It's 2013!!! So much has happened this year. I must say, this has most definitely been the best year yet!

Let's take a look at 2012 in review

January: No pictures from January. But from what I remember:

Started my second semester at Snow College. Spent a lot of time with my friends Kylee and April planning Kylee's wedding. Threw a bachelorette party and a bridal shower. Saw beauty and the beast in 3D. (it was AWESOME).

Kylee Got MARRIED!
Somehow this is the only picture I have of that day

April got engaged!!

And for valentines day, we went to the Lady Antebellum concert, No pictures from that either cause I lost my phone! I was hoping for a ring... and hoping and hoping!!!

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About Me

I met my wonderful husband in the summer of 2007 and knew that he was something special. We started officially dating in spring of 2008 and have been together ever since. We were married in August of 2012, and are expecting our first child in April of 2013.
I love to craft, DIY, and spend time with my family.